UK's May agrees to give timetable next month for her exit

May 16, 2019

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Theresa May fended off pressure Thursday from Conservative Party lawmakers demanding she quit within weeks.

But she agreed to set out a timetable next month for her departure, raising the prospect that Britain will get a new prime minister before it leaves the European Union — currently scheduled for Oct. 31.

Leaders of a powerful committee that oversees the party's leadership contests met May to express growing frustration in Conservative ranks at her refusal to name an exit date following her failure to deliver Brexit.

Members of the body, known as the 1922 Committee, have threatened May with the threat of a leadership challenge if she does not step down.

After the meeting, committee chairman Graham Brady said May wanted to defer naming her departure date until after Parliament votes on May's Brexit bill in the week of June 3.

"Following that ... she and I will meet to agree a timetable for the election of a new leader of the Conservative Party," Brady said.

May survived a no-confidence vote among party colleagues in December, and under Conservative rules she can't face another challenge until a year has passed. Some lawmakers have been pressing for a change to those rules to allow a new vote on May's leadership as soon as June.

Pro-Brexit Conservatives are furious that Britain has not yet left the European Union, almost three years after voters backed Brexit in a referendum. Many blame May for the impasse and want her replaced with a more staunchly pro-Brexit leader such as the former foreign secretary, Boris Johnson.

Johnson told an audience at a business event Thursday that "of course I'm going to go for it" when the contest to replace May as Conservative leader is formally launched. Several members of May's Cabinet have also started unofficial leadership campaigns.

May points out that she struck a divorce deal with the EU, but it has been rejected by Parliament three times, even by many of the lawmakers who backed Brexit in the referendum.

May has said she will resign once a Brexit deal is approved and make way for a new leader to guide the U.K. through the next stage in the process, which will determine the country's future relationship with the EU.

The prime minister plans to make a fourth attempt to get lawmakers' backing for Brexit terms by putting a withdrawal agreement bill to a vote in early June. She says that if it passes, Britain could leave the EU in July, well before the October deadline set by the bloc.

But it's unclear how the government plans to persuade a majority of lawmakers to back May's EU divorce terms, since few legislators on either side of the Brexit divide seem prepared to change their positions.

Weeks of talks between the government and the opposition Labour Party have failed to produce a compromise agreement.

"I'd have thought it was patently clear that if the prime minister's deal is put for a fourth time, if it's allowed, it will fail just as it has failed three times already," Labour Brexit spokesman Keir Starmer said.